Vehicle headliners are used to both cover the bare material (usually metal) of the vehicle roof and to provide protection to the vehicle occupant in a crash event. Headliners are typically composed of multiple layers which include a relatively rigid or semi-rigid backing and an outer cover of a woven or non-woven material which is color-coordinated to the rest of the vehicle for aesthetic purposes.
Headliners are typically composed of a single molded piece of material. The outer cover may be added to the molded piece after formation or may be molded with the backing in a single mold during a single or multi-stepped process. The headliner of a vehicle must be wide enough not only to provide coverage for the roof, but also must be wide enough to cover the area between the roof and the side walls. In vans and in sport utility vehicles the headliner is both wide and long, usually long enough to cover the entire area of the roof from the windshield opening to the rear door or liftgate opening. Ordinarily the considerable width prohibits passage of the headliner through the rear opening of the van or sport utility vehicle. On initial vehicle assembly this prohibition is not usually a problem as the windshield has not yet been installed and the headliner can be passed through the windshield opening. However, replacement of a van or sport utility headliner after the vehicle has been assembled is a time-consuming task. In the modern vehicle the windshield is maintained in position by a weather sealing strip that is attached by very strong adhesives to the walls that define the windshield opening. This makes removal of the windshield anticipatory to the removal of the old headliner and installation of the replacement headliner very difficult and costly.
As an alternative to removing the windshield, attempts have been made to pass the single piece headliner through the rear opening of the van and the sport utility vehicle. However, this opening is most ordinarily narrower than is the windshield opening and, as a consequence, the single piece headliner is too wide to permit the passage of the headliner through the rear opening without bending the piece and creating a permanent crease mark in the outer cover. Complicating this procedure is the fact that rear door and tailgate components (such as the doors and tailgates themselves as well as the liftgate struts) interfere with the procedure.
Accordingly, as in so many areas of vehicle technology, there is room in the art of vehicle headliner design for providing a headliner arrangement which may be installed or replaced in a vehicle's interior without the need to remove the vehicle's windshield.